Welcome to the future: The apples are different here.Courtesy t.shirbertWho else is tired of boring old apples? C’mon, everyone, you know you know it. I know you know it. Just say it: I’m tired of boring ol’, unsurprising, jive-axe, apples. Let it out. It’ll feel so good: all these apples taste like apples—if I wanted to eat a clone, I’d tear apart a lamb, not an apple. Am I right? Don’t answer that—I know I’m right.

Apple trees, it just so happens, don’t produce apple seeds that are exactly like themselves. Why would they? Humans never produce children exactly like themselves, and that sort of genetic variation suits us well. But if there were a particular human that tasted tart and crisp and delicious, wouldn’t we want that person’s offspring to be exactly the same? Maybe. With apples, at least, that has certainly been the case.

So, to ensure that the varieties of apples we’re so familiar with keep their desired characteristics, commercial apple trees are always propagated by grafting a chunk from an existing tree onto sturdy rootstock. That way you get a new tree identical to the old one, and you get the lame Junior Crisp, Granny Spice, and Yellow Fantastic apples that we’re all tired to death of.

The apple science of the new millennium, however, is looking past this past of homogeneity. While some catalogued and selected-for traits, like resistance to certain diseases, are worthwhile retaining, some geneticists are exploring the potential of increased variation. Apple trees at Cornell University have been made to grow in columns, instead of branching out at their crowns, and to produce fruit while remaining the size of a shrub, or to have weeping branches like willow trees. Similar variability can be found in the fruit itself—flavors like “anise, berries, or roses” exist, and fruit with as much vitamin C as an orange, or one that is loaded with antioxidants, have been envisioned. How about that?

Name needed: The apple variety, currently known at the University of Minnesota Arboretum as MN-447, needs a proper name. What do you think this small, sweet and sometimes cracked apple should be called? Send in your suggestion.A few years ago, actress Gwyneth Paltrow named her new-born son Apple. Now you have the chance to name an apple.

The University of Minnesota is taking suggestions for a more proper name for one of its research apples. It’s currently known as MN-447. And who really wants to go by MN-447, right?

The apple has actually been around for some time, although it hasn’t been put out on the commercial market. It’s a breeding apple that’s been used to create new varieties of apples, including the U’s world-famous Honeycrisp.

According to apple researchers at the U, while it has some great genetic characteristics to pass along to other apples, it isn’t exactly the “apple of the eye” to consumers. It is a smaller apple that often cracks around the top and has a strange flavor that’s been compared to Hawaiian Punch, molasses and sugarcane on steroids.

In taste tests, usually five or ten percent of samplers give it high marks. But it’s exactly that small group, a niche market, that the university wants to provide an apple to. And it wants to market it with a better name than MN-447.

Hmmmmm? What would be some good names for this particular apple? It’s small, very sweet and sometimes a bit cracked. How about “Harpo” after Harpo Marx. Or maybe something more contemporary like “Howie” after Howie Mandel from Deal or No Deal.

You can submit your own name suggestion for MN-447 by clicking in the "What's New" section at www.arboretum.umn.edu through Oct. 31. Here are some of the names that have already been suggested: Tropical Blizzard, Tropical Punch, Arctic Blast, Arctic Oasis, Polar Picnic, Northern Nugget, Hardy Tropical Punch, Tundra Crunch, Nordic Delight, Sugar Cane, Cold Snap, Iceberg.